Chris Anderson Warns Makers: We Are Going to Get Sued
By Karla Robinson
October 30, 2012
October 30, 2012
- In a discussion of the IP implications of the maker movement, Wired editor Chris Andersen said, “I can tell you with certainty I’m going to be sued. I’m going to be sued sooner or later — hopefully later.”
- “That inevitability, though,” the Atlantic writes, “is part of the organic disruption the Internet has brought about. ‘This is what the web does,’ Anderson said: ‘You’re incentivized to try things out, to iterate, to throw it out there and see what happens.’ And that kind of freewheeling invention is bound to butt heads with a system that stridently emphasizes the ‘property’ aspect of ‘intellectual property.'”
- The article continues, “In forums where makers — ‘hobbyists turned entrepreneurs turned, you know, megalomaniacs’ — discuss IP issues, Anderson said, one thing becomes clear: ‘The simple answer is no one knows what the rules are.'”
- Anderson is promoting his new book “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution.” During Thursday’s talk, he discussed new partnerships forming between makers and established tech and manufacturing firms. Anderson also detailed what he considers the two approaches to patent litigation.
- “You can either do a patent search and find out whether you’re going to violate a patent” — and “you probably won’t get a good answer.” Then, “if you do then violate a patent, the fact that you did a search first actually increases your liability.”
- Or “you can do what we do, which is just: Do it. Wait for the [cease-and-desist] letter. When the letter comes, try to innovate around it,” Anderson said. “If the trolls come after us, one of us is going to be brave enough to fight back. And the courts will ultimately decide.”
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